Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

More or less EAC seems to do the most through job of checking for errors of any ripper out there. It does this in all kinds of ways like testing the CD-ROM to see how it rips, what kind of errors it can detect and so on, and also by checking against a database. If EAC says your rip is good, it is extremely likely it is good. If there's a problem, like damage to a disc that causes read problems, EAC very often can find a way to compensate for it and still get a good rip.

So it is kind of a quality assurance thing. Rip with EAC, you probably have no problems.

How much does this matter? Hard to say. It partially depends on your discs. If they are in good condition then there is less likely to be any trouble reading them and thus you are more likely to get a good rip regardless. However just because they look ok doesn't mean there isn't damage that you can't easily see with the naked eye. Remember that the pits on a CD are very small, so there could be damage smaller than you can see that still causes problems. It also partially depends on your drive. Some drives do a really good job reading audio CDs, others are very poor at it. So if you have a good drive, you aren't likely to have a problem, but if you don't you may.

As an example with drives back in the day they used to have real problems with accurate seeking. The computer would say "Go read data from this spot," and they'd just kinda go to the general area. That meant to get a good rip you had to have your program compensate for this, read more than it needed to, and correct all the read jitter. As far as I know, drives these days don't have that issue. The one I have doesn't at least. I'll seek accurate to a single sample and start reading again, meaning that no correction needs to be done.

I personally just use EAC because it is free, works well, and is the best way to guarantee a good rip. I probably don't need to, something else would probalby work fine, but since EAC doesn't cost anything, I figure why not?

The reason why this is necessary is that audio CDs don't have as good an error correction as data CDs. You can actually see this in sizes. A normal CD these days holds 700MB of data, or 80 minutes of audio. Well CD audio is 44.1kHz, 16-bit stereo. That equals 172 kilobytes per second, or about 10MB per minute. That means that 80 minutes of audio needs 800MB. So how's that work? Well in data mode that extra 100MB is used up in the additional error correction that is done. In audio mode, it isn't there. As such audio CDs can have errors much easier than data CDs that can't be corrected.

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

... A normal CD these days holds 700MB of data, or 80 minutes of audio...

There is no such a thing as audio in a CD. The "audio" in the CD is actually data.[/quote]Yes there is, "audio data" is recorded differently on CD's, thus why more fits. It's a method of recording & the standard for audio CD's, not that any of this is relevent...

EAC is the best as Sycraft said because you can be very sure, you don't need to rely on a database or anything like that althought you can you don't need to & don't get stuck if your CD isn't listed or the pressing is diffrent or if you have offset issues...

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

[quote author=Light-Fire link=msg=692052 date=1267946083]Use a ripper that check for the AccurateRip database. If it is correct than you don't need to use EAC. Use EAC only if you have problems with your normal ripping software (because the CD is damaged).[/quote]

Then on the other hand, there aren't that many rippers which use AccurateRip. EAC, dBpoweramp (my favourite, from the same developer as AccurateRip itself) and foobar2000 for MS-Windows users. (Edit: And CUERipper?)

Also, the beta version of dBpoweramp release 14 does cross-press verification. Is that into EAC yet? I have not tried it in fb2k, but since it does so in the retro-verification I guess it does so upon ripping too?

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

... A normal CD these days holds 700MB of data, or 80 minutes of audio...

There is no such a thing as audio in a CD. The "audio" in the CD is actually data.

Yes there is, "audio data" is recorded differently on CD's, thus why more fits. It's a method of recording & the standard for audio CD's, not that any of this is relevent...

EAC is the best as Sycraft said because you can be very sure, you don't need to rely on a database or anything like that althought you can you don't need to & don't get stuck if your CD isn't listed or the pressing is diffrent or if you have offset issues...[/quote]

Let's clear up Sycraft misconceptions:

1) The amount of data that fits in a CD is EXACTLY the same. It doesn't matter what type of data you have int it. The maximum capacity of the physical media is always the same (700 Mbyte nowadays)

2) Once more. There is no audio in CDs. Only data. The CD containing PCM data doesn't have an error correction system based on check sum because was never intended to be ripped, so there is no way for the computer to know if the data ripped from the CD is 100% correct of not.

3) EAC (and any other ripper) NEVER knows for sure if got it right. Depending on a data base (AccurateRip) is more likely to give you an accurate result (without destroying your CD/DVD driver). Once your files are ripped in a "modern" type of file (flac, wav, etc.) it is possible for your computer to know (from now on) if that file is corrupted or not, because now you can use checksum to verify it's integrity. Comparing your data with the data that other people got from their different equipment and discs and getting the same results indicate with way more confidence than EAC ripping without AccurateRip that you got it right because if you have an error this error is not likely to be the same as other people have in their CDs so your data will not match anybody's.

Don't take me wrong. I am not against EAC. It is a great tool when you have a damaged CD which rips don't match AccurateRip's data base.

And yes. Using burst mode will not stress your CD driver, but then EAC will be just like any other ripper.

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

1) The amount of data that fits in a CD is EXACTLY the same. It doesn't matter what type of data you have int it. The maximum capacity of the physical media is always the same (700 Mbyte nowadays)[/quote]If you decide to aggressively correct what someone else has said, you'd better be sure you are right.

An audio format CD stores 2352 bytes of data in every sector. A data format CD stores 2048 bytes of data in every sector. The remaining 304 bytes are divided between addressing data (16 bytes) and additional error detection and correction data (288 bytes). The reason that a data CD has less data and more error correction redundancy is because you absolutely cannot tolerate a single bit in error, whereas unrecoverable errors on an audio CD can usually be masked by interpolation.

In summary, a standard "80 minute" CD can store about 700MB when written in data format, and about 800MB if it is created in audio format.

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

1) The amount of data that fits in a CD is EXACTLY the same. It doesn't matter what type of data you have int it. The maximum capacity of the physical media is always the same (700 Mbyte nowadays)

If you decide to aggressively correct what someone else has said, you'd better be sure you are right.

An audio format CD stores 2352 bytes of data in every sector. A data format CD stores 2048 bytes of data in every sector. The remaining 304 bytes are divided between addressing data (16 bytes) and additional error detection and correction data (288 bytes). The reason that a data CD has less data and more error correction redundancy is because you absolutely cannot tolerate a single bit in error, whereas unrecoverable errors on an audio CD can usually be masked by interpolation.

In summary, a standard "80 minute" CD can store about 700MB when written in data format, and about 800MB if it is created in audio format.[/quote]Perfect, simple yet technical, you should write some online tutorials :-)

It amazes me someone can write such fiction, Light-Fire I mean.

Light-Fire it's easy, I know you don't care & just want to feel like you have a PHD in BS but do the simple test of extracting the PCM data & then re-writing it as a standard data CD.

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

... A normal CD these days holds 700MB of data, or 80 minutes of audio...

There is no such a thing as audio in a CD. The "audio" in the CD is actually data.

Yes there is, "audio data" is recorded differently on CD's, thus why more fits. It's a method of recording & the standard for audio CD's, not that any of this is relevent...

EAC is the best as Sycraft said because you can be very sure, you don't need to rely on a database or anything like that althought you can you don't need to & don't get stuck if your CD isn't listed or the pressing is diffrent or if you have offset issues...[/quote]

what do you mean by pressing different and what are common offset issues?

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

you don't need to rely on a database or anything like that althought you can you don't need to & don't get stuck if your CD isn't listed or the pressing is diffrent or if you have offset issues...

In that case the security of your Rips is much reduced. C2 pointers miss errors, re-reading also misses errors (when the wrong data is re-read the same both tries). This goes for Plextools also, the CD drive its self cannot detect all errors.

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

you don't need to rely on a database or anything like that althought you can you don't need to & don't get stuck if your CD isn't listed or the pressing is diffrent or if you have offset issues...

In that case the security of your Rips is much reduced. C2 pointers miss errors, re-reading also misses errors (when the wrong data is re-read the same both tries). This goes for Plextools also, the CD drive its self cannot detect all errors.

Not only is it problematic, but it invites some serious trolling and in-fighting amongst usually civil audio enthusiasts.

If the poster is just looking for a good reason to use EAC, as greynol has aptly pointed out, many reasons can be found here in HA.

CUETools ripper is a great alternative for those who must have free sw. dBpoweramp, in its current iteration, is a respectable "rival" to EAC (I prefer dBp personally.) ...but you will have to pay a (very fair, IMO) amount for it in its fully-functioning form.

It really comes down to what you think it's worth. My opinion is that EAC and dBpoweramp are both superb secure rippers. dBp's advantage is that it is easier to maintain and a bit more novice-friendly. It is worth the asking price, IMO, for what it lacks in it's cost of personal time. EAC is well-respected around here and it's strong-point is that it's free. They'll both give you great results.

If you just don't care about rip-reports and cue sheets to "recreate" the CD with exact offset, I found that iTunes had a good ripper with the error correction turned on. I never heard a pop, click, or anything in the rips I made with it in the past.

Reasons to switch to EAC from foobar or winamp for ripping.

dBp's advantage is that it is easier to maintain and a bit more novice-friendly.

While I think dBpoweramp has some superior attributes to and refinement over EAC, I do not agree with this idea that it is easier to maintain and is novice-friendly. I once counted the number of settings related to secure ripping and EAC had fewer.

Is 24-bit/192kHz good enough for your lo-fi vinyl, or do you need 32/384?